text: During the turbulent Six dynasties period (220–589), self-experimentation with drugs became commonplace, and many people tried taking poisonous elixirs of immortality as well as the psychoactive drug Cold-Food Powder. At this time, Daoist alchemists began to record the often fatal side effects of elixirs. In an unusual case of involuntary elixir poisoning, Empress Jia Nanfeng (257–300) was forced to commit suicide by drinking "jinxiaojiu" 金屑酒 "wine with gold fragments".
  The Daoist scholar Ge Hongs c. 320 Baopuzi' lists 56 chemical preparations and elixirs, 8 of which were poisonous, with visions from mercury poisoning the most commonly reported symptom.
  The individuals who experimented with Six Dynasties alchemy often had different understandings and intentions. A single alchemical formula could be interpreted as being "suicidal, therapeutic, or symbolic and contemplative", and its implementation might be "a unique, decisive event or a repeated, ritual phantasmagoria".
  Emperor Ai of Jin (r. 361–365) died at the age of twenty-five, as the result of his desire to avoid growing old. The Book of Jin says the emperor practiced bigu "grain avoidance" and consumed alchemical elixirs, but was poisoned from an overdose and "no longer knew what was going on around him". In a sardonic sense, the emperor fulfilled his desire since the elixir "did actually prevent him from growing any older".
  Emperor Daowu (r. 371–409), founder of the Northern Wei dynasty, was cautiously interested in alchemy and used condemned criminals for clinical trials of immortality elixirs (like Mithridates VI of Pontus r. 120–63 BCE). The Book of Wei records that in 400, he instituted the office of the Royal Alchemist, built an imperial laboratory for the preparation of drugs and elixirs, and reserved the Western mountains for the supply of firewood (used in the alchemical furnaces). "Furthermore, he ordered criminals who had been sentenced to death to test (the products) against their will. Many of them died and (the experiments gave) no decisive result."
  Many texts from the Six dynasties period specifically warned about the toxicity of elixirs. For instance, the Shangqing School Daoist pharmacologist Tao Hongjings 499 Zhengao (真誥, Declarations of the Perfected) describes taking a White Powder elixir.
  Within this context, Strickmann says a prospective Daoist alchemist must have been strongly motivated by faith and a firm confidence in his posthumous destiny, in effect, "he would be committing suicide by consecrated means." Tao Hongjings disciple Zhou Ziliang 周子良 (497–516) had repeated visions of Maoshan divinities who said his destiny was to become an immortal, and instructed him to commit ritual suicide with a poisonous elixir composed of mushrooms and cinnabar. In 517, Tao edited the Zhoushi mingtong ji 周氏冥通記 (Records of Mr. Zhous Communications with the Unseen) detailing his disciples visions.
  The Liang dynasty founder Emperor Wu (r. 502–549) was cautious about taking elixirs of immortality. He and Tao Hongjing were old friends, and the History of the Southern Dynasties says the emperor requested him to study elixir alchemy. After Tao had learned the secret art of making elixirs, he was worried about the shortage of materials. "So the emperor supplied him with gold, cinnabar, copper sulphate, realgar, and so forth. When the process was accomplished the elixirs had the appearance of frost and snow and really did make the body feel lighter. The emperor took an elixir and found it effective." Tao spent his last years working on different elixirs and presented three to the emperor, who had refused immortality elixirs from Deng Yu 鄧郁 (who claimed to have lived 30 years without food, only consuming pieces of mica in stream water).
  Emperor Wenxuan (r. 550–559) of the Northern Qi dynasty was an early skeptic about immortality elixirs. He ordered alchemists to make the jiuhuan jindan 九還金丹 (Ninefold Cyclically Transformed Elixir), which he kept in a jade box, and explained, "I am still too fond of the pleasures of the world to take flight to the heavens immediately—I intend to consume the elixir only when I am about to die".